Axel Salto (1889­–1961)
Bowl, 1929
Stoneware, Københavns Stentøjsbrænderi

In 1923, Axel Salto was contacted by the Danish porcelain factory Bing & Grøndahl, asking him to create a range of works in soft, colourful porcelain to be exhibited at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris in 1925. Salto won a silver medal at the exposition, giving him his breakthrough as a ceramicist. Even so, his interest in porcelain waned, giving way to a growing desire to work with stoneware instead.

In 1929, Salto met the experienced potter Carl Halier (1873–1948), who in the summer of 1926 had set up a workshop, Københavns Stentøjsbrænderi in Frederiksberg. Salto began working in Halier’s workshop, where he had the opportunity to experiment with stoneware. The two men embarked on a close cooperation. Halier would throw various pieces of stoneware, after which Salto added modelled ornaments in the form of fluting, buds or other embellishments.¹ While the two men’s collaboration at Københavns Stentøjsbrænderi was short-lived, lasting only approximately eighteen months, it had a lasting impact on Salto’s endeavours. It was during his time with Halier that he developed his ‘fluted style’ and ‘budding style’, with which he continued to work in the years ahead.

Salto created the low, speckled bowl in the ‘fluted style’ at Halier’s workshop. On its outside he engraved a pattern consisting of horizontal, arch-shaped grooves. The inside of the bowl he left unadorned. In addition to the decoration, the eye-catching, black speckled glaze would also have been an important feature to Salto, who often experimented with a lighter, brownish spectrum of earth-coloured glazes at Halier’s workshop.²